Posts tagged daybreak

After the first snow of winter came… rain. Actually, rain comes pretty much after everything. However, it didn’t last and once the weather settled back sown some of my favourite late autumn/early winter conditions arrived. Frost.

It always surprised me just how hard a frost is needed to transform hibernating moorland into a wonderland. One night of minus temperatures won’t do it. It takes two at least; three or more are even better as the frost then gets into and onto everything.

Apart from making everywhere look pretty, frost also creates some nice wildlife photography opportunities. Birds that are typically shy and hide away at every opportunity begin to seek out the sun’s warming rays. Particularly immediately after sunrise. So, whenever a clear frosty night is forecast I automatically place myself on early morning photography alert.

I will head out early and slowly cruise along moorland byways, always looking well ahead for tell-tale signs of sunning birds. I’m often fooled into thinking that a bird-shaped stone dressing a dry stone wall is something that it is not. But when I do actually spot a sunbathing bird and the light is nice, I find that a slow and steady approach allows me to get much closer than I normally could. I assume that once they get comfortable they don’t want to move unless they have to. Just like sunbathers around a pool who don’t want to give up their hard-earned sunbed space.

However, I don’t just look at walls. Grouse rarely seem to feel a need to seek out the sun. They can be almost covered from head to toe with frost and barely seem to notice. Typically, they will wait for sunlight to come to them. I’ll often find myself taking photographs of frost covered grouse in dips and hollows, creating images in cool light and with little shadow, which can reveal an immense amount of detail. Thereby displaying a frosty coating in all its glory.

The Trotternish Ridge first made its mark on my psyche many, many years ago when I read about it in a mountaineering magazine. I think that it was a combination of surreal views and surreal names of its various rock features that caught my imagination. Names such as The Needle and The Prison in the Quiraing area (a fantastic, almost other-worldly, imagination-inspiring landscape of rock formations near the northern end of the ridge) and the Old Man of Storr in the south.

As well as being a surreal place it must not be forgotten that it is also a relatively remote and rugged area, being tucked away on the northern half of the Isle of Skye. Something that I became fully aware of after reading about a couple that set off to traverse the complete ridge, only to disappear in bad weather. * When the opportunity came along for me to visit this ridge with a camera in my hand, there was no way that I was going to turn it down.

After following the usual landscape photographers’ ritual of getting up while it is still dark and heading out while still partially asleep, I was on location before sunrise. A bank of thick cloud on the eastern horizon meant that very little sunrise could be seen (i.e. none), but I was there so I was going to take some photographs regardless of the conditions. And I did. And I kept on shooting until my perseverance was rewarded with beams of light squeezing though breaking clouds. I took a series of shots of each of my compositions set for different exposure, simply so that I could render a little more detail in my final, manually-merged picture. An alternative approach would have been to use graduated neutral density filters, but I didn’t have any with me.

Of the final results there are two that I particularly like. One that I processed from raw files that reminds me of the sense of surrealism that I felt. The other, also processed from raw files, to capture the sense of drama that I felt. This one has been worked up as a black and white photograph as I found colour to be too distracting in this instance.

To have come away with only a few photographs that I thought to be worth keeping, after such a long wait to visit the Trotternish Ridge, could be considered a failure. However, I really like what I have, so for me the visit was a definite success.

*Their bodies were found several months later. It was suggested that they had simply walked off the edge of the ridge in poor visibility, but no-one really knows what happened.

The chill caught me by surprise. Dressed in cycling shorts and jersey I stepped outside. It was just after sunrise on a gloriously clear morning. As I wheeled my bike across the drive, about to set off for a 36 miles ride, the crisp air quickly covered my arms and legs with goose bumps. Where did that come from? It’s summer!

August has been a turbulent month for weather. With the Jet Stream unpredictably wandering all over the place like a drunken Dalek, we don’t seem to have had anything like our normal late summer weather. Sometimes it’s been very wet, yet very dry at others. Sometimes it’s been very warm, yet surprisingly cool at others, as it was on the morning mentioned above.

I had been warned. The weather forecast mentioned typical early autumn weather for a couple of days. What does that mean? It means warm by day; cool by night with occasional early morning mist patches.

As I set off riding I could see that the forecast had been spot-on. Lying low in the dale was a thin mist. Not much I’ll admit, probably not enough to make a picture of, but enough to get me excited. Summer is a slow time for me when it comes to photography. It’s when my camera has a holiday and takes it easy. But at the first sign of mist it gets dusted down and woken from its slumber.

I love mist. Here is something that has so little substance that I can’t even get hold of it, yet it gives a photograph real presence. Used correctly it takes a two dimensional object and gives it the illusion of depth – a third dimension. Oh yes, I love mist. It excites me! Yet it’s strange to think that as heather on my local moors is in its spectacular summery best, I’m beginning to think of autumn mists. I guess that’s photographers for you, always looking for the next opportunity.

Daybreak is always a special time. Something deep down inside of me connects with the dawning of a new day and it always feels a privilege to watch it happen. It’s even better if I have my camera with me because I can then enjoy the sight time and time again. And strangely enough, every time I look at a daybreak photograph that I’ve taken it is as if I am immediately transported back there. I can almost hear the silence, taste the air and feel the chill again.

Photographing at this time of the day has its own challenges; long exposure times and a difference in light levels between sky and land that is higher than Mount Everest is above the Indian Ocean are the obvious ones. These challenges can easily be met with a mix of equipment and technique: use a tripod for the long exposure and a graduated neutral density filter or subtlety blended multiple exposures for the contrast (my preferred method).

Any daybreak is special but one that throws in a bit of mist is extra-special (awesome might be a better word). If you are graced with a dawn mist I’d suggest you resist the urge to rush off as soon as the colourful sky has faded. This ethereal component of a photograph is unpredictable and can do all sorts of strangely wonderful things. It may come to nought photographically, but by hanging around you have at the very least enjoyed more of the morning for its own sake and that can’t be a bad thing.

At last, snow finally arrived in my neck of the woods and then, just as quickly, it went. So what do I do? Without a good covering of snow or a hard frost moorland doesn’t look anywhere near its photogenic best at this time of the year. Under such conditions I often find myself attracted to the coast and amuse myself playing among rocks and waves. But not this time.

I fancied doing something a little different and thought that I’d go and explore the fishing port of Whitby, famous for its links with the very real Captain James Cook and the fictional Count Dracula. I went early, while it was still dark, not hoping to bump into Dracula but in hope of taking photographs of this small but busy port while it was still asleep.

Unbroken cloud has been the death knell of many a photographic outing of mine but it does turn a lovely shade of cool blue as sunrise approaches, which I hoped to contrast against warm tungsten street lighting. Once in the morning light sweet-spot you have to work quickly. There is a window of about fifteen minutes when the cool/warm balance works well. Outside of that the sky is either too dark or washed out and ineffective. Fortunately for me, if things don’t work out it’s not a big problem, I can always try again another day.

Even if you have always upheld the truism that there is no such thing as a stupid question, you would probably find your patience severely tested if I asked you, “What is the colour of snow?”

“It’s white of course!”

“White?”

“Yes, white. White as in snowdrops; white as in ‘as white as snow’ and white as in ‘snow white’ (but not Snow White, the beautiful young girl with seven short friends).”

And so it may seem, but to the photographer’s eye things can look very different. On a bright winter’s day sunlit snow is definitely brilliant white. Under other conditions, it is not. On a dull, overcast day, snow wears a cloak of grey that robs it of vitality and any spark of life. Scenes that would otherwise take my breath away don’t even earn a second glance.

However, snow is wonderful stuff. If the light changes colour, snow responds with the efficiency of a chameleon, reflecting and sometimes even amplifying what nature is offering. This effect is as mesmerising as it is beautiful, and is at its most extreme at the very edges of the day, dawn and dusk. This is when snow picks up subtle pre-sunrise hues, or reflects fiery sunset reds, or simply basks in cool blues from open shade.

It’s always a pleasure to be out at these times, but it is cold. In fact it can be nose clearing, ear tingling, eye-wateringly cold; cold even to the point of pain. But I’ve always felt that the reward for being out there is worth the discomfort.

This Blog…

This occasional blog is a tasty serving of nature and wildlife photography, with a side dish of my experiences out in the field and lightly seasoned with any random thoughts that occur to me along the way.

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